The following guest post comes from author, Rhoda Baxter. Here at the Pink Palace of Bitchery, we’re a crafty bunch. Knitting and crocheting have become a frequent conversation, and we love it when readers can share their crafted creations with us. While working on a blanket, Rhoda discovered that creating something through crochet was quite similar to writing a novel.
When I was stuck in the middle of writing my last book, I decided I needed to learn to crochet. I started off trying to learn it from a book and then, after a suggestion from the Bitchery, I found out about YouTube crochet demos. Suddenly, the incomprehensible stitches made sense.
After a few weeks of practising, I thought I was ready for a project. Why bother if you don’t have a project to work on, right? Not for me the simple, easily completed project. Oh no, I decided to make a blanket of hexagons. One of the nicest things about crochet is that it keeps my hands busy, so that I can’t do anything else at the same time (apart from maybe watch Poldark). This gives me time to think – something that’s quite useful if you’re plotting a book. Whilst I was doing all this thinking, it occurred to me that crocheting this blanket was taking me through pretty much the same steps as writing the next book.
- Get the basics right
You need to learn the stitches. Once you’ve got that, you learn to put them together so that you end up with something that isn’t just a big jumble of wool. This takes longer than you’d expect. In a similar vein, it took me years and many, many thousands of words to learn how stuff like ‘show not tell’ and how to write easy to read scenes where the author doesn’t come in between the reader and the story. As with crochet, after a while, you internalise how to do it and can produce rows and rows of it reasonably quickly (unless it goes wonky, in which case you’ll be able to spot what’s wrong quicker too).
- It’s all about tension
The first few hexagons I made were technically fine, but they were all loose and lopsided. The tension too loose and uneven. Looking back at my early attempts, I think my writing suffered from something similar. A good scene needs some tension to drive it forward and give that sense of something happening. Without tension you just get some stuff happening and…meh.
- Planning helps
I’m not a natural planner. I just start with a rough idea of what I want to do and just dive right in. I did this with the hexagon blanket, but soon realised that I needed to work out a pattern in a little more detail. I decided to go for a rainbow coloured rows of hexagons (ambitious? Moi?). I had to draw little pictures of where each colour was going to go.
I do this with my books too – get a short way in, so that I’ve written myself into the character’s heads, then go back and do a bit more planning. A LOT more planning would help, but I’m just too darned impatient.
- Don’t be afraid to unravel and redo parts of it
The side effect of not planning? Well, you end up with stuff that doesn’t fit properly into the pattern. I have had to unravel so many bits of crochet. If I’d kept all the stitches from day 1 and not unravelled anything, this blanket would be the size of a football field by now. As it happens, I’ve had to do so much unravelling and redoing, it’s barely a foot long.
My latest book, Please Release Me ( A | BN ) is about 70K long. I did a quick back of the envelope calculation of all the words I cut out and I reckon I wrote about 110K into order to cut it back down to the ‘right’ words of 70K. That’s 40 thousand extra words. They’re not wasted. It’s all part of the learning experience.
Besides, I might be able to rework some of those words into a short story or something. I wish I could say the same about the wasted crochet stitches.
- Move elements around until the fit better
I got to row three of my hexagons and realised that the colours didn’t flow quite as well as I’d thought. In fact, they’d look a lot better if I moved the pattern along one. So I unravelled the last row and move the hexagons on one. I like it much better now.
I do this with scenes a lot. An order of scenes which sound fine before I wrote them will suddenly ‘feel’ wrong. I would have to write the core of each scene on a piece of paper and then move them around. If this happens before that, then it would tie in with this other thing that happens here. Move the scenes around and it feels better. This gut feel isn’t magic, it’s just something internalised from years of reading other people’s books. Of course, moving things around means that you have to go through and edit everything else to fit, but that’s okay because you end up with something better.
- Keep going.
I’m less than a third of the way into my hexagon blanket now and I’m already getting sick of it. It feels like a massive task and I don’t think I’ll get it done in time for Christmas. I don’t even know why I’m bothering.
I hit this same slump with every book, usually around the 25K mark. My brain throws up all kinds of reasons why the book is awful and why I should just give up and take up a hobby like, say, crochet, instead. I know from experience that I just have to keep going. So I will. One wretched hexagon at a time.
All this procrastination thinking has very useful side effects. My youngest child started copying me – she now has her own tangle of wool and large crochet hook that keeps her quiet for…ooh, minutes at a time. More importantly, about three rows of hexagons in, the problem with plot of the book I was writing suddenly resolved itself. While I was focusing on the stitches, my subconscious was free to poke at the knot in the plot and unravel it. So I put aside the blanket for the time being and went back to writing the book. Which, really, is what I was supposed to be doing in the first place.
Rhoda Baxter writes contemporary romantic comedy for Choc Lit Ltd. In real life, she’s a former scientist who now works in intellectual property. She lives in Yorkshire, England with her family and her half-finished crochet projects. Her latest book Please Release Me is out on September 10th.
Rhoda can be found wittering on about science, comedy and cake on her website or on Twitter (@rhodabaxter).
Fascinating! I’ve never thought of it like that – but then. I can’t crochet. Although I have found that if I start a really involved craft project like knitting or baking something complicated, it takes away my urge to write, maybe these things all act on the same centres of the brain as writing? And that’s why they are similar?
This was super encouraging to me! I can tackle giant knitting and crochet projects, so maybe one day I can tackle writing a book as well.
I love baking (and writing books), but this is the first time I’ve tried crochet or sewing. I think all craft projects, writing included, give you the same sense of satisfaction because you can see what you’ve achieved.
Malia, I’m hoping that the fact that I can write a book means I that I do have the patience necessary to finish a crochet blanket!
This is an absolutely fantastic analogy that works just as well for knitting. And I just bought your latest book. so thank you!
I use my crochet to problem solve. So I absolutely agree with your theory. I think it isn’t just analogous to writing, but anything that requires you to think, plan, puzzle out how something works, how to make it work better. And it does require both hands.
While it does require focus, and both hands, there will come a time when it’s almost like meditation. You can almost do it without thinking. That’s when my mind problem solves. It’s multitasking, but a very focused multitasking. Not the ADHD multitasking that I do otherwise.
As for your hex blanket, that is a huge project. I found doing A small throw, with nine blocks of nine squares, all solid colored, took me about ten days to complete. The same sized blanket, in a straight stitch, would likely have taken me two or three days. I’ve been crocheting for close to a decade.
All of the color changes, weaving in ends, joining motifs, and unraveling and starting over when you realize mistakes have been made, make this kind of project much more involved. Those steps tripled the time it took me to complete my blanket. I spent twice as much time tying knots, weaving in ends, joining motifs, and fixing my mistakes, as I did crocheting my squares.
Don’t let that discourage you! It’s great practice; you’ll learn a lot doing this sort of project. I did.
Also, I love the way you’re plotting your blanket, with both a horizontal stripe, and a diagonal one, very cool. I hope you’ll share a picture of the finished project when it gets to that point. I’d love to see how this story ends.
What a great way of comparing the two – of course it might put me off because I’ve had the interest/patience to do anything remotely creative apart from writing! Good luck with the book and the blanket 🙂
Yay for crochet and writing. Long ago I made a livejournal post about fanfic ploting and freeform crochet.
The analogy does work for knitting too. I just happened to choose crochet (my aunt used to crochet lacy tablecloths). The hexagon blanket project originally a bit bigger, but it has shrunk from the original grand plan, to something a little more manageable.
In all honesty, I think the meditative aspect of it – where my hands are busy creating something, leaving my mind free to wander off – is probably more important than the blanket itself. On the other hand, blankets are dead useful.
Anne – hope you enjoy the book. 🙂
Great post, Rhoda, I’ve never thought of crochet that way! I used to crochet a lot but after finishing a bedspread that took me seven years (yes, 7!) I got so sick of it I haven’t done it for a while. And I never used the bedspread LOL. Maybe it’s time I gave it a try again though? As for the writing, I do exactly the same as you – dive right in, then have to untangle it later. I guess that’s just the way it has to be 🙂
I think I’ll print this post so that I can hand it to people who say “You read all the time. Why don’t you write a book?” Reading is breathing, writing is WORK. Thank you to all the author’s I’ve loved.
Oooh, I like this: “was free to poke at the knot in the plot”. What a great idea. I always feel so guilty if I’m sitting apparently doing nothing (‘I’m thinking’ doesn’t cut it). This seems like a brilliant way to let my befuddled mind wander. Love it. I’m quite loving your hexagon blanket too, Rhoda! Keep going! 🙂 xx